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Minuum is a Bold Attempt at a Minimal Keyboard in a “Single Dimension”

When your keyboard pops up on your device as you tap inside of a text box, do you ever get frustrated over the fact that it covers up precious real estate or hides objects that you would rather see? You are not alone. A new keyboard, which is hoping to see funds through an IndieGogo campaign, is attempting to fix this problem. It’s called Minuum.

Minuum wants to promote “delightfully fast sloppy typing” through its shrunken QWERTY keyboard. You see that image above? That’s it. It takes up all of one row (or “single dimension”), but is able to pack in the power of an entire full-blown keyboard. Thanks to a “specialized auto-correction algorithm that allows highly imprecise typing,” you can tap as fast as your fingers allow and still produce correct messages.

The keyboard is resizable, can be moved around your screen to any position (think tablets), and can be taken outside of touchscreens to gaming controllers, motion typing, etc.

Here are some of the keyboard’s benefits:

Recovering more than half of the usable touchscreen space you lose when you type on traditional virtual keyboards

Allowing you fast text entry when your typing is sloppy

Providing you with letter magnification for precise typing—especially useful if you have large fingers

Giving you the benefit of smart auto-correction

Respecting your familiarity with the QWERTY keyboard so you don’t have to re-learn the keyboard layout

Letting you type anywhere—with a keyboard you can move around your touchscreen

If all of that wasn’t making Minuum clear enough, watch the video below to see it in action, then think about backing it for $5. The project currently sits at just over half of its funding goal of $10,000.

I think I’m too used to swyping now. Don’t think I’m interested enough to be an early supporter though.

telling it how it is

am I the only one confused about why they need $10,000? It just seems that with all these kickstarter things is its just a way to get you to buy it. They say they’ve been developing this for 2 years. Why didn’t they need the money then?

I think the reason they are doing this is beacuse there is no way that anyone pays $5 in the play store but anyone will “contribute” $5 to something

Matt Digilio

Damn. When I signed up, it was at around $6,000. Now it is funded at over $25,000!

Glen49

Update. they have raised over $25,000.

Guest

“The project currently sits at just over half of its funding goal of $10,000.”

The first thing that popped in my head when I saw him typing on his are was, the pebble watch and google glass, I can’t wait when all of this tech becomes cheap in 2-3 years

KleenDroid

Nothing seems to be getting cheaper. I can buy a decent laptop for less than a phone.

Samuel Serafim

Amazing. This works perfect for smart watchs too.

Real Talk

Losing precious screen space wouldn’t be a problem if someone still made a decent phone with a physical keyboard. Between touchscreen keyboards, software buttons, and massive bezels, there is very little actual screen space on most phones nowadays.

JoshGroff

The note 2 has plenty of space on the screen even with a keyboard taking up 1/3 of it.

primarchlion

This + Swype/Swiftkey Flow

Daniel

the other solution, and the one I prefer, is having a beautiful physical qwerty keyboard on my phone that doesn’t use up screen space 🙂

that being said, the gesture and single-movement applications for this might really help disabled patients type again

jcampbell474

The keyboard is pretty cool. I enjoyed seeing David Spade pitch it, too. If anyone can sell it, he can.

Austin Warren

my fingers are too big

Rodeojones000

Not even slightly interested in this. Good luck to them though.

Cowboydroid

The applcations outside of Android are pretty amazing. This could make its way to HUD displays as a practical implementation.

TheOiulkj

HUD displays on ATM machines?

Tim242

They want you to donate money and not even get a beta? Ummmm no.

Brent Cooper

Was the June 2013 projected release date for supporters not the beta? I was very confused. It was under the timeline section about 3/4th the way down the page. I think I’d donate if i got a beta in June of this year…surely they will have a beta for backers

Tim242

I was saying that if I pay them now, I should get a beta now.

triumphtriple

That’s not how investing works.

Tim242

I understand that. My point is, it’s a bad idea for an app…especially a quirky keyboard app. Remember 8-Pen?

triumphtriple

Ahh, gotcha. I’m hopeful for this one.

derek connolly

Contributed…first time contributing to a start up program. It’s kind of exciting, almost feel like I am helping to get something going.

Sure, it doesnt happen all the time but it is annoying. Yea im on JOP40D Sprint.

KleenDroid

We should take the conversion private. I’m a big fan of the custom ROMs. But if you don’t want to do that, one of the best things to do to get your phone running in tip top shape is a factory data reset. It will freshen it up, fix issues, and make it feel like a new phone. You will not lose your contacts, pictures, music or anything on your virtual SD card. But you will have to install your apps again.

I bet if you are having that glitch you may also have others. So a little but of inconvenience doing the reset will be well worth the effort. You will notice a big improvement.

Donated, wanna see this in action… plus the way my memory is it will be a nice surprise to try something ive “never heard of” before in a few months.

sean.yesmunt

I would love to see the look of an iPhone user, or any android user for that matter if they picked up my phone and noticed that I was using this keyboard.

zurginator

Haha, my phone confuses enough people already. No hardware buttons, no software buttons, no home screen.

Dylan Patel

How do you use it?

S2556

magic

But probably PIE

zurginator

You are Winrar.

zurginator

Swipe from the left opens an app drawer. Swipe from the bottom brings up a radial menu of the navigation buttons. If you continue outside that to the left I’d quick settings, to the right is notifications. Sounds insanely complicated, but it’s actually quite simple.

Obvious Sarcasm

Just like mine!
Pie, Action Launcher Pro, Circle Launcher, and Wave Launcher.
Oh, and picture password for the lock screen.

Dave

With phones pushing 5″ the portrait keyboard should be pretty easy to use and see more than 1/2 of the screen.

I find that having to presses buttons is actually not as fast as on screen keyboard. My typing speed increased greatly when adopting SwiftKey. So no thanks.

Cowboydroid

The point isn’t speed. The point is accuracy. With accuracy comes speed. I’m constantly having to go back and correct errors when I’m typing, which obviously takes time, and I’ve used everything from Swiftkey to Swype to the stock Google keyboards. Nothing beats a physical keyboard for accuracy, and I would die to have a Nexus with a phsyical keyboard.

Oh yea, im also very accurate too. Its was pretty much all around improvements going to Swiftkey. I agree stock keyboard for me is hard to use though.
I wasn’t saying you were wrong. I was just saying for me i was scared of going from keyboard to not. I dont miss it at all. Sorry to hear you didnt have the same benifits.

michael arazan

My Typing was Fastest and most Accurate with My Droid 1 using the physical keyboard, it’s been downhill from when the keypads fell off and used touch screen after that, even Google voice has the same accuracy as swiftkey. Predictive typing and auto-correct is actually slowing me down

I’d like a physical keyboard like the old Droid phones that can snap on or off to any cell phone to use and maybe be bluetooth or plug in with exra battery power for your phone too.

Russ

Prove it first then ask for money. Investment 101!

Josh

If they are worried about taking up screen space, why don’t they make a keyboard that is transparent so you can see what it would normally be covering up underneath it?

fanboy1974

This would be a cool feature for Samsung’s hover feature. Hover your finger over the keyboard and individual keys light up. Pay me Samsung!!!

Xavier Spruill

Hover you say? Hmm… I’ll just inconspicuously swing by kickstarter. Nothing to see here. Muahahahahaha!

halezaidi17vi

my roomate’s sister makes $67 hourly on the computer. She has been fired for 8 months but last month her paycheck was $12642 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on Ask25.c­om

Jon Lambert

That’s how the tablet version looked like it worked. The problem with a transparent keyboard is that it would cover up the box that you’re typing in in most cases.

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